One of the stranger stories of the Red Sox season played out during the club’s late-April road trip to Pittsburgh and Cleveland, when Masataka Yoshida was effectively benched for a full week despite purportedly being available.

As it turns out, there was more going on behind the scenes than was known at the time.

Yoshida and manager Alex Cora both confirmed that the designated hitter’s thumb injury had been an issue earlier than previously known, and Cora said it was a factor in Yoshida’s apparent benching during the club’s late-April road trip.

The club did need to use the DH spot to ease Tyler O’Neill and Rafael Devers back into the lineup, but Cora acknowledged he also kept Yoshida’s injury quiet.

“We don’t have to tell everyone what’s going on with our players, right? We’re trying to keep the competitive advantage,” Cora said. “At the same time Raffy needed to DH, Tyler needed to DH, but there’s certain things we know are going on and we don’t want the opposition to know, that’s why I was very quiet about that.”

Yoshida wound up returning to the lineup the following weekend against the Chicago Cubs at Fenway Park, but he left the club’s April 28 game after being jammed by a pitch and hasn’t played since. He was subsequently diagnosed with a left thumb strain, which landed him on the injured list and prevented him from gripping a bat for weeks.

The injury first cropped up sometime in mid-April, but Yoshida can’t remember exactly when. He finally began swinging off a tee for the first time on Thursday, and Cora said he’ll take batting practice for the first time on Saturday.

“I think we took a step forward,” Yoshida said via translator Yutaro Yamaguchi. “The comfort level is going up, which is a good sign.”

Yoshida still isn’t pain free, but when he reaches that point he expects to ramp up more quickly and hopefully go on a rehab assignment. Prior to the injury Yoshida was batting .275 with two home runs and a .736 OPS in 24 games, and given the club’s recent offensive struggles the Red Sox could certainly use his bat back in the lineup.